She said that she stored the money inside the cabinet last year for her grandmother, who has recently passed away.

“So I gave my grandmother about Rp 3 million in cash. She said that she did not want to use it, so I put it inside the cabinet. I told her if she needed money she could just take some from there,” Putri said on Tuesday, kompas.com reported.

“But instead of taking it, [grandmother] kept putting more money in until it reached about Rp 10 million. I did not know that and I forgot that I put the cash inside the cabinet,” she said.

After her grandmother passed away, Putri checked the cash inside the cabinet and found two plastic bags.

“There were two bundles of bills; one bundle was inside a paper bag and the other was inside a plastic bag. I threw away the paper bag because it had become a termite nest,” Putri said.

She counted the remaining bills inside the plastic bag and found she was able to identify about Rp 5.4 million of it.

Putri visited Bank Indonesia and asked whether the damaged bills could be replaced with new ones. However, after an assessment, it turned out that not all the bills were eligible.

“The damaged bills must be at least 67 percent intact,” Putri said.

Out of about Rp 5.4 million, only Rp 1.05 million worth of the bills were eligible to be replaced with new ones.

Separately, Bank Indonesia spokesperson Onny Widjanarko said that damaged, wrinkled, defective, or withdrawn bills could no longer be used for transactions.

“For residents who have bills that can no longer be used, such as defective or damaged ones, they can replace those bills with new ones at the nearest Bank Indonesia branch,” Onny said. (ami)